Problem: Staffing/Healthcare Admin

It’s hard to find good help…

The burden of healthcare administration has continued to get worse and more cumbersome. Often, especially in smaller practices, the doctors must take on more and more responsibilities outside of seeing their patients. This takes them away from doing what they love, which is taking care of their patients, and leads to feeling burned out. It is especially ominous if you look at all the news coverage on the “great resignation”, and all the online forums about how difficult staffing has become. It may feel to some, that it will never get better. We talked about this in more detail in one of our previous newsletters, but do recognize the severity of the issue, and its lingering effect on physician morale.

 Most physicians we work with became doctors to help people at a high level and didn’t become doctors to drop claims and worry about insurance verification. They also know that financially, seeing a higher number of patients is their only way to remain profitable, so they are consistently torn between patient care and financial obligation and do not see a way out if they cannot find the supporting staff.

The Solution To Physician Burnout

The answer for providers is always patient care first. It is why you chose the profession, and what provides the most satisfaction. Outside of hiring us, there are a lot of options that can help with working fewer hours and earning the same amount or increasing revenue. Work smarter, not harder. 

Start with an audit, which is an overall analysis to see if resetting some areas of your practice will save you time and money. We look at how your schedule is set up and evaluate to see if this is still your best solution. Are you maximizing your availability, or have you chosen your current schedule in the best interest of staff and patients? Look if you can make small changes that make a big impact on your work/life balance. 

Are you getting the maximum reimbursement for each service? Have you tried to negotiate your rates with payers? Most providers feel like payers will never renegotiate rates, but that isn’t always true. We have had success working with payers independently and getting higher rates or becoming preferred providers. We’ve found that it is worth the effort of asking.

Are you billing everything you do properly? Are you accounting for your time with the right E&M code? Coding changes constantly and is worth looking at periodically to see if you are limiting yourself based on previous parameters. Or possibly, a simple change in the documentation that can lead to add-on codes or ancillary charges. 

 Although none of the solutions listed replace having a great staff, they are all worth exploring. The physicians we work with feel torn between spending more quality time with their patients versus the schedule they need to keep meeting their practice’s financial obligations. They want to do what they love but must do other burdensome tasks to ensure their financial responsibilities are met. This is a common feeling amongst providers, but rarely the case. There are lots of options to allow providers to focus on patient care, but not slip financially. This is a big part of what we do, and we often find many ways to help